Hang the Moon With Me
by Hunsdon
Summary: "She calls up excitement instead. The anticipation that drew her up and out of the bed an hour ago. More than that, now, because he tugs at her and she's been lingering. Warmth and scent at steady breath and if she's not careful, they'll miss it." Another Bad Santa (7 x 10) followup. One-shot.


Title: Hang the Moon With Me

WC: ~2200

Summary: "She calls up excitement instead. The anticipation that drew her up and out of the bed an hour ago. More than that, now, because he tugs at her and she's been lingering. Warmth and scent at steady breath and if she's not careful, they'll miss it." Another Bad Santa (7 x 10) followup, set 12/22/14. One-shot.

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><p>She climbs up his body, too impatient in the end to wait for light so long in coming, even though that's the point. The light is entirely the point.<p>

She hikes the covers over her head and shimmies past his toes and the bend of his knee. Over thigh and hip to arrive at the broad expanse of his back. She hovers there a while, playing games with the rise and fall of his shoulder blade. Lifting her cheek at just the right moment so his skin doesn't quite whisper against hers.

He's dead to the world and warm—fantastically warm—while a chill still chases over her. She's been up and about. Out and in and up and down and up again. She's been busy, and it all tugs her lower and lower. Warmth and scent crumpled in the sheets tugged high in the fist that rests under his chin. His steady breath.

It all calls her back, and she's about to give in. About to leave the bag she has packed up standing guard at the foot of the bed. She's about to scootch her socks off her feet and curl into his side. It could be another kind of surprise.

She's about to leave it at that. Her eyes are fluttering shut, and she's telling herself it'll keep. That it was a strange idea anyway and the last thing she wants to do is make this all worse. The last thing she wants to do is act like he needs some kind of consolation prize.

She's about to leave it, but he stirs in his sleep. His ribs rise high enough that it catches her off guard. The freezing cold tip of her nose dots a hollow in his spine. He tenses. A tangle of words catches between his teeth. Her name and a curse, but it's gone soon enough. The breath leaves him in a long, long sigh.

It's forlorn. Sad, even though he's deep, deep in sleep. It decides her. It reminds her and brings her mouth close to his ear. It brings the cold of her fingertips to the line of his jaw.

"Castle."

She feels the corner of his mouth twitch. Feels his lips come together and part. Her name again, and it's a little annoyed. She catches the skin just beneath his ear in her teeth and nips. She's less careful now. More insistent and a little more unkind about where the chill of her skin falls.

"Castle."

It's sharper this time. Not quite full voice, but something a little closer to _there__'__s a body_ than is really fair, especially now.

_Especially now_.

It catches her unawares. A fist low and insistent inside her, but she's not thinking about that. They agreed that they're not thinking about any of it until after the holidays, and even then it's nothing. It's absolutely nothing, so she pushes it away.

She calls up excitement instead. The anticipation that drew her up and out of the bed an hour ago. More than that, now, because he tugs at her and she's been lingering. Warmth and scent and steady breath, and if she's not careful, they'll miss it.

"Castle!" She shoves at his shoulder in earnest now. She burrows her fingers between his ribs and the mattress.

His head snaps up from the pillow. He draws away from the cold with a hiss. He blinks at her. Frowns at her and tries to swat the cold away. "Kate."

"Hi." It comes out breathy and shy. She'd roll her eyes if she loved him any less in moments like this. If she loved any less the way his eyes blink open and closed and he frowns like she's still tucked away on the far side of his dreams. "Castle. Hi."

"Kate. You . . . it's . . . this is . . ." He drops, face first, back to the pillow. HIs words are a muffled mess, but he doesn't seem to notice. "You're up."

"You're up, too, Castle." She flicks the covers back with one hand. She snakes an ankle between his and tugs down low, whisking those away, too. Excavating them both. "You're up."

He yelps and hauls his head around. "_Not _up." He bats at the air, reaching for the blankets and missing by a mile. "Dark." There's a little triumph in it, like the argument is unanswerable. "_Not _up. It's dark."

"Not for long, Castle." She creeps toward him, nudging with her knees and scooting him back toward the edge of the bed. "Up. We can't miss it.""

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><p>He grumbles the whole time. While she shoves slippers on his feet and jerks his jacket up his arms and mostly closed across his chest. She gives up on the zipper and tosses another blanket around his shoulders. The very last one in the loft, maybe. She's been busy.<p>

He grumbles as she hustles him out the door, and she half expects him to collapse into a boneless heap when he realizes they've taken a left out of the loft, not a right.

"Stairs?" He literally digs his heels into the carpet, lagging behind, then pulling her to a dead stop. "No stairs before dawn. If that wasn't in the vows, it should've been."

"Castle." She rounds on him, exasperated and more than a little anxious now. She doesn't want to miss it. "You've climbed stairs in the middle of the night a hundred . . ."

She trails off too late. Makes a helpless gesture that he catches in the air. He smiles down at her. A little too brave. A little to hearty and over the top, but they're _not _talking about it.

"I have, Detective. A hundred sets of stairs before a hundred dawns." He says it with the sigh of a martyr as he folds her fingers arounds his arm and tucks them in against his side.

She turns her face to press a kiss against his biceps. They're not talking about it, and that's him as much as her. She's grateful for the reminder. She reaches for the door to the stairs, but he's a step ahead of her now. He holds it open and urges her through, crowding at her back. Whispering in her hair.

"A hundred . . . what's one more?"

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><p>They're not real candles. Just LED votives, all in white. As many as she could get her hands on, given how late inspiration had struck. They're not real, but his eyes go wide, and it doesn't make a bit of difference.<p>

"Kate," he breathes. He rushes a few steps ahead of her, then drifts back, twisting this way and that. Looking from her to the two dozen steady-burning lights. He turns finally to her, his voice full and low. "Not dark."

"Not dark." She shivers. She steps into his body and tugs him onward. "Cold though."

They turn a familiar corner. A low jog of wall around the rooftop garden. There's shelter here. Summer and spring and fall, there's shelter, and now she's made her own. Shelter for two. She sinks into it, laughing. She pulls him after. He comes, falling and laughing, too. Rolling and reveling in the nest of blankets she's made in the shadows with tiny lights burning all above and around.

"Cold," he murmurs, pulling one layer and another and another up around them as he folds himself around her. "Not for long, Beckett."

He kisses her. She murmurs it back, dreamy and distracted. More than a little sleepy now she has him here and it's good. "Not for long."

* * *

><p>"There's food." It's a statement. A fact rumbling warm against her neck. "I know you Beckett," he says as though she's arguing. "There's food."<p>

"Doughnuts." Her eyes flick open, suddenly remembering the careful layers of foil and paper. "_Warm _doughnuts."

She tries to struggle upright, but he's already reaching past her, pinning her down as he plucks the heavy bag easily in one hand and hauls it to rest just above her head.

"Doughnut Plant?" His head pops up from deep within the recesses. He peers at her suspiciously. "They don't open for like . . ." He cranes his neck to take in the sky. It's dark. Overcast and totally uninformative. "Like a _million _hours."

"They open at 6:30, Castle." She laughs as she knocks her knees against his. He knows that full well. He's run half a mile out of his way and back too many times to count.

"These are not 6:30 doughnuts." He lays a palm lightly over one packet. She can practically see the warmth rising from it. "You were cruelly depriving me of sleep and blankets at everything decent _before _6:30."

"They're the first doughnuts of the day." She shrugs as best she can with him still looming over her. She tries for nonchalant, though she knows the pleasure is spilling out of her. "I know a guy."

"Beckett." He narrows his eyes. "Did you trade sexual favors for doughnuts? Because we're married now, and that's totally not cool."

She presses up on her elbows. She kisses him and clings to his shoulder with one arm and snatches one warm square of foil to her with the other. She wafts the scent toward him. "Not even for _these _doughnuts."

"_Only _for these doughnuts." He groans, torn between kissing her and fumbling at the wrapping. "And only this once."

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><p>There's powdered sugar on his chin. There's powdered sugar everywhere, but the last light of a votive illuminates the smudge of white just before it winks out. She has to taste it. She has to feel the drag of stubble along her tongue and swipe her thumb over the skin as she reveals it.<p>

"Better?" He tucks his chin far in as though he'll be able to see.

She tugs the hair at the nape of his neck. A counterbalance to settle him back where she can lean into him. "Pretty good either way."

He laughs into her hair. He drags his own thumb under her lip. He captures something—chocolate or a stray sprinkle and brings it to his own lips.

"Pretty good," he agrees.

He settles closer to her and goes quiet. They're both quiet.

There's an air of anticipation, or maybe it's just her. Maybe it's just what she meant this to be and it's sort of a nonevent. Sunrise. Light. The point of the whole thing. It's here. Seems to be, anyway. The solar sensors on the votives pick up on it. They wink out, one by one. Sent to bed by Mother Nature, or maybe it's just the city. Men, women, and children, stumbling to life, their hands to a thousand switches on a thousand walls as they start their days in the dark. Maybe that's all sunrise has to say for itself.

It should make her sad. She should be annoyed with the heavy rolling clouds and not-quite-rain. At everything between her and the celebration she'd wanted. But there's powdered sugar all over, and they're wrapped up in every blanket she could lay hands on. They're staring up at the sky and who cares if there's sun or not? Who cares?

* * *

><p>"Hot chocolate." She's more than half asleep but the chunk of the mug on concrete snaps her out of it. He sets it, empty now, outside the boundary of their cocoon.<p>

"Hot chocolate. La Esquiña." She nods, the top of her head knocking into his chin. "Special trip."

He slithers a little further down and reaches to turn her toward him. He brings them nose to nose and kisses her.

"Special." He grins a thank you, but it turns thoughtful. "No coffee." It's no more a question than the doughnuts, but it's strange to her. She's anxious, instantly worried that he'd rather something else. Instantly worried that she's gotten it wrong, but his hand tangles in her hair and he holds her steady. He pitches his voice low and when he finds her eyes he gives her an over-the-top bedroom stare. "Is this a going-back-to-bed party, Beckett?"

"It could be." She matches her tone to his. She flutters her eyes shut, but the kiss she's expecting doesn't come.

"What's the occasion?"

He asks it softly. Timidly, like he's afraid he's intruding. It steals her words, the fragile way he asks. She's bad at this. She feels bad at this, though they're folded around each other and he was smiling a second ago. She tips her chin up to the sky. To the scudding grey clouds where the sunrise should be. Just a little earlier than the day before. She squints against the not-quite rain. She sticks her tongue out at it all.

She thinks about the coming days. A hundred parties. Holiday things they've had to say yes to, because there was a wedding, but there wasn't and everyone wants the newlyweds. Drinks. Small groups and teeming masses, because everyone—_everyone__—_at the twelfth is maudlin about the DA and his pronouncement even though they're not talking about it. Even though it's nothing.

She thinks about all of it, then doesn't. She wipes her mind clean. She looks down again. He's here. Now. Always. It's the only thing that matters.

"You," she says. She plants the heel of her hand under his jaw and turns his face up to hers. "You're the occasion."

"Oh," he says. Dumbly at first but he brightens. He catches the sense of it, all at once, and he likes it. He likes the idea. He brightens, and it's the only thing in heaven or on earth that matters right now. "There was supposed to be sun."

"There is, Castle." She nods at the votives—one, two—the last of them winking out. She kisses him. He tastes like chocolate. Like powdered sugar and sun. "A little more today than yesterday. But you're the occasion."

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><p>AN: Feels. I am still not over them, it seems. Thanks for reading.


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